New features in Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) to meet your complex email flow scenarios

This latest release of Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE) brings a wealth of features that help you protect and secure complex mail flow scenarios. Great news for Microsoft Office 365 Beta users, you now get FOPE as your standard email protection solution. If you’re using a Microsoft Exchange Server, this release brings you the simplicity of single sign-on from the Exchange Control Panel to the FOPE Administration Center.

Use the links in this blog entry, start the video, or explore Microsoft.com on your own to learn about some of the other FOPE improvements in this 11.1 release. For example, new mail-routing capabilities with safe lists to skip IP address filtering, forced transport layer security with FOPE connectors, and also the ability to delegate administrator privileges.

Need more detail? Read on! With this release, we give you more options to configure FOPE with your creative email routing.

You’re sending messages in a cross-premises scenario?

Read about the outbound smart host scenario, in which FOPE redirects outbound email to an on-premises server that can apply its own processing before delivering your messages to their final destination. Reading is too old-school you say? We’ve got this explained in video format too. Check out “Outbound Smart Host Scenario” on TechNet Edge.

You must have TLS, you say?

Sure you have trusted business partners, but your messaging back and forth should be trustworthy too. FOPE now provides several forced Transport Layer Security (TLS) options through policy rule settings. Now your inbound and outbound email routing channels can use TLS with the partners you designate. Did we go too deep already? TLS is a cryptographic protocol that provides enhanced security for communications over the Internet. Find out more about the TLS options in our soon-to-be viral video titled “Regulated Partner With Forced TLS” on TechNet Edge. More details are in our latest forced-TLS scenario product documentation too.

Didn’t find your message scenario yet? There’s more.

Perhaps your existing mail topology is more like one of the following scenarios. If it is, follow the links to learn more about how FOPE can work in your enterprise and with Office 365.

Prefer to outsource your mail administration?

Now you can allow someone outside your company to manage FOPE for you with the newest administration features. The new Advanced tab in the FOPE Administration Center helps with this, and there administrators with appropriate permissions can see a consolidated view of all the companies that they can manage. Our Advanced tab documentation in the TechNet Library has all the details for you.

Hosted email. You have options.

We realize that you have a lot of choices with your email scenario, so we made it easy to figure out what set of FOPE features is available with what Microsoft email hosting product you’re using. A feature differences topic in the TechNet Library provides a thorough explanation. Let’s go into another layer of detail on this right now, and review just a few administrator access features for our hosted email solutions:

You have…

Your administrator can…

FOPE standalone

Login to the Administration Center directly with your FOPE credentials to configure all of your domains and services. Use the new connectors to set up only some of the complex email flow scenarios.

Microsoft Office 365 Beta for Professionals and Small Businesses

Not do much in FOPE because the FOPE Administration Center is not available, even though FOPE is still applying its virus scanning, edge blocking, antispam and message hygiene features

Microsoft Office 365 Beta for Enterprises

Access the FOPE Administration Center through a link on the Mail Control tab of the Exchange Control Panel; although you cannot configure certain domain and IP address settings in the FOPE Administration center, as they are performed in the Exchange Control Panel. Use the new FOPE connectors to set any of the complex email flow scenarios that are supported by FOPE.

Live@edu

Access the FOPE Administration center through a link on the Mail Control tab of the Exchange Control Panel. Similar to Office 365 Beta, certain configuration changes are not performed in the FOPE Administration center. Use the new FOPE connectors to set any of the complex email flow scenarios that are supported by FOPE.

Business Productivity Online Suite – Standard

Login to the Administration Center with your FOPE credentials to manage quarantine settings and view reports if you have set this up through FOPE Technical Support.

Business Productivity Online Suite – Dedicated

Login to the Administration Center directly with your normal FOPE credentials to configure all of your domains and services. Use the new FOPE connectors to set any of the complex email flow scenarios that are supported by FOPE.

Keep in mind that when you access the FOPE Administration Center, certain features and settings are different between on-premises domains, or FOPE standalone, and hosted domains. For example, if you have created companies or domains within the Microsoft Office 365 Beta cloud hosting service, their settings must be managed in the Exchange Control Panel rather than in the FOPE Administration Center.

We look forward to hearing your feedback about FOPE and making sure you have all the info you need to be successful.